Chapter 7: Beyond the segment: Syllable structure in English

7.1. The Syllable: a fundamental phonological unit in any language.

A tentative definition
7.2. The structure of the syllable. Phonotactic constraints
7.3 The importance of segmental sonority for the syllable structure
7.4. Constraints on onsets
7.5. Constraints on codas
7.6. Syllabic consonants. Non-vocalic nuclei
7.7. Syllabification in English

CHAPTER 7

BEYOND THE SEGMENT:

SYLLABLE STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH

7.1. The Syllable: a fundamental phonological unit in any

language. A tentative definition

Syllables are something we are made aware of from the very first days we go to
school. The first verse we learn by heart, the first words we learn to spell are inextricably
linked to syllables and syllabification. If somebody asks us about the structure of a
foreign word, or of a word we might not have acquired too well we may be uncertain
about the sounds that make it up, but we’ll definitely be on a safer ground and feel more
at ease if asked how many syllables that word has. Scholars have proved that even a
child’s initial efforts to articulate and memorize the phonetic structures of the words of its
mother tongue are closely linked to the syllabic configurations of those words.
Historically speaking, the first attempts human beings made to give their thoughts a
graphic form – see the first chapter of this course where different types of writing were
briefly described - were fundamentally associated with syllables since it was the
syllables of words rather than their component sounds/phonemes that the earliest forms of
writing tried to render.
Why is the syllabic rather than the phonological structure of the words more
obvious for us? What makes then syllables so important in any human language, what is
their magic role that seems to transcend that of the mere sounds which – as we know from
de Saussure – are intimately linked to the concepts the words/linguistic signs stand for?
These are some of the questions we are going to try to answer.
In spite of what has just been mentioned, paradoxically enough, if we are asked to
give a definition of the syllable we might encounter serious difficulties. And this goes not
only for laymen in the field, but for phoneticians or specialists as well. Or particularly for
them, since common people cannot be reasonably expected to have more than an intuitive
perception of the syllabic structure of words, while scholars, who are supposed to be able
to provide a learned explanation for everything they study, have failed to reach a minimal
consensus on the basis of which a scientifically valid and acceptable definition of the
syllable can be given.
Criteria that can be used to define syllables are of several kinds. What we are
actually aware of when we talk about our consciousness of the syllabic structure of words
is the fact that the flow of human voice is not a monotonous and constant one, but there
are important variations in the intensity, loudness, resonance, quantity (duration, length)
of he sounds that make up the sonorous stream that helps us communicate verbally.
Acoustically speaking, and then auditorily, since we talk of our perception of the
respective feature, we make a distinction between sounds that are more sonorous than
others or, in other words, sounds that resonate differently in either the oral or nasal cavity
when we utter them. In previous chapters, mention has been made of resonance and the
correlative feature of sonority in various sounds and we have established that these
parametres are essential when we try to understand the difference between vowels and
consonants, for instance, or between several subclasses of consonants, such as the
obstruents and the sonorants. A comparison was made earlier between the way in which
we articulate sounds and these sounds are propagated in the air on the one hand and the
way in which musical sounds are produced and transmitted in the environment on the
other hand. If we think of a string instrument, the violin for instance, we may say that the
vocal cords and the other articulators can be compared to the strings that also have an
essential role in the production of the respective sounds, while the mouth and the nasal
cavity play a role similar to that of the wooden resonance box of the instrument. Of all
the sounds that human beings produce when they communicate, vowels are the closest to
musical sounds. There are several features that vowels have on the basis of which this
similarity can be established. Probably the most important one is the one that is relevant
for our present discussion, namely the high degree of sonority or sonorousness these
sounds have, as well as their continuous and constant nature and the absence of any
secondary, parasite acoustic effect – this is due to the fact that there is no constriction
along the speech tract when these sounds are articulated. Vowels can then be said to be
the “purest” sounds human beings produce when they talk. By contrast, most consonants
(and particularly obstruents) will sound rather like noises since the obstruction along the
vocal tract has various “impure” auditory effects – the articulation can be accompanied
by friction, by an implosion etc.
Once we have established the grounds for the preeminence of vowels over the
other speech sounds, it will be easier for us to understand their particular importance in
the make-up of syllables. The flow or stream of sounds that we produce when we speak
and which is propagated through the air to reach the auditory system of our
conversational partners can then be analyzed as a succession of various vocalic and
consonantal sounds that follow after one another almost uninterruptedly. However, we
have just mentioned the fact that this flow is not a constant, invariable one and we all
know that when we speak or we listen to someone speaking what we call the modulations
of the human voice follow certain rules of the language of which we are normally
intuitively aware.
One fundamental division would be the Saussurian one, the one that is
semantically based and establishes certain boundaries - often almost imperceptible
phonetically - where each and every word (linguistic sign) begins or ends. Similar
segmentations can be operated at higher or lower levels. At a superordinate level we can
talk about rhythmic groups, stress patterns, and intonation within the more inclusive
syntactic sequences of a phrase or even an utterance (sentence). The phenomenon playing
an essential role will be stress as we are going to see in a subsequent chapter about
prosody. And just as in the case of syllable structure, everything will fundamentally be a
question of prominence. On a subordinate level, we can identify the syllables that make
up the word and if we continue our analysis, the component phonemes. Syllable division
or syllabification and syllable structure in English will be the main concern of the
following pages.
We have so far pointed out the remarkable similarity existing among all the
languages spoken in the world, emphasizing the fact that no matter how unfamiliar a
certain language is or sounds to us we will still be able on an intuitive basis to identify the
number of syllables in a given enunciation if not their exact structure. (The distinction is
important and relevant for our discussion, since it is not the exact composition of the
respective sequences that we perceive, but the number of prominent units). Having in
mind everything we have said so far, we can safely say that we have identified one of the
language universals, so much cherished by grammarians, namely the syllabic structure of
our utterances. Our joy of discovering something that represents a common denominator
of all human idioms will be, however, very soon tempered by the realization that the
syllable is at the very core of the peculiar and idiosyncratic nature of each and every
language. It is, to a large extent, the unit carrying the very blueprint of each particular
language. Just as the DNA structures in our cells carry the genetic information that makes
us unique, unmistakable individuals, the structure of the syllables of a given language
will fundamentally contribute to the phonological identity of the respective language. The
rules underlying the syllable configuration in each particular language are generally
referred to as the constraints or phonotactic constraints governing the syllable structure
of the respective languages (the term comes from the Greek words phonê, meaning voice,
sound, and taktikê, meaning art of placing, particularly troops). They will be examined
in detail further on as far as the structure of English syllables is concerned.